HOLMEsi MORTUARY BASKETS. 17 



caverns and shelters where conditions were especially favorable to their 

 preservation. Snch specimens may as reasonably be attributed to the 

 mound-building as to the other Indians. The following- statement is 

 from John Haywood : 



Ou the south side of Cuiulierlaml river, about 22 miles above Cairo, ' * * is a 

 cave * * » . lu this room, near about the center, were fonuil sitting iu baskets 

 made of cane, three human bodies; the flesh entire, but a little shrivelled, and not 

 much so. The bodies were those of a man, a female and a small child. The com- 

 plexion of all was very fair, and white, without any intermixture of the copper 

 colour. Their eyes were blue; their hair auburn, aud tine. The teeth were very 

 white, their stature was delicate, about the size of the whites of the present day. 

 The man was wrajjped in 14 dressed deer skins. The 14 deer skins were wrapped in 

 what those present called blankets. They were made of bark, like those found in the 

 cave iu White county. The form of the baskets which inclosed them, was pyramidal, 

 being larger at the bottom, aud declining to the top. The heads of the skeletons, 

 from the neck, were above the summits of the bl.aukets. ' 



Sieves and Stkaixehs. 



It is apparent that baskets of open construction were employed as 

 sieves in pre Columbian as well as in post-Columbian times. Almost 

 any basket could be utilized on occasion for separating fine from coarse 

 particles of food or other pulverulent substances, but special forms 

 were sometimes made for the purpose, having varying degrees of 

 refinement to suit the material to be separated. 



Bartrara mentions the use of a sieve by the G-eorgia Indians in strain- 

 ing a "cooling sort of jelly" called conti, made by pounding certain 

 roots in a mortar and adding water. 



Butel-Diimont describes the sieves and winnowing fans of the Louisi- 

 ana Indians. The Indian women, he says, make very fine sieves — 



With the skin which they take otf of the canes; they also make some with larger 

 holes, which serve as bolters, and still others without holes, to be used as winnowing 

 fans. » • • They also make baskets very neatly fashioned, cradles for holding 

 maize; a»nd with the tail feathers of turkeys, which they have much skill in arrang- 

 ing, they make fans not only for their own use, but which even our French women 

 do not disdain to use.- 



Le Page Du Pratz says that " for sifting the tiour of their maiz, and 

 for other uses, the natives make sieves of various finenesses of the splits 

 of cane;'" and a similar use by the Indians of Virginia is recorded by 

 John Smith : 



They vse a small basket for their Temmos, then pound againe the great, aud so 

 separating by dashiug their hand in the basket, receiue the flo wr in a platter of wood 

 scraped to that forme with burning and shels.^ 



From Hakluyt we have the following: 



Their old wheat they iirste steepe a night in hot water, and in the morning pound- 

 ing yt in a morter, they use a small baskett for the boulter or searser, and when 



I Nat. and Abor. Hist, of Teim., John Haywood. Nashville, 1823, pp. 191-192. 

 ' Op. cit., vol. I, p. 154. 

 » Op. cit., vol. II, p. 22C. 



* Hist. Virginia, John Smith. Richmond, 1819, p. 127. 

 13 ETH 2 



